Four Shia Muslims shot dead in Pakistan

DPA Islamabad, June 17 (DPA) Four Shia Muslims were gunned down Tuesday in Pakistan’s troubled North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), police said. The incident occurred in the sectarian violence-prone town of Hangu, located some 100 km south-west of provincial capital Peshawar.

“Gunmen fired a volley of shots near a market, killing four people, including three family members,” a duty officer said.

Tension ran high in the area where business centres were closed in anticipation of backlash.

Police did not confirm the attack was sectarian, but the town’s history is tainted with violent clashes between the majority Sunni and minority Shia Muslims.

Tuesday’s attack in Hangu came one day after a bomb explosion at a Shia mosque in another NWFP town of Dera Ismail Khan that killed four people, including a child. DPA